In Hangman 1.7, you get seven wrong guesses -- six to build the figure, and one for the hanging (or, in the case of the Christmas theme, the melting of the snowman). This proves just challenging enough; I found myself having to use most of the chances in the "Celebrities" category, because the frequency of letters in names is different than the frequency of letters in English words. The standard practice of first guessing frequent letters such as e, t, a, o, i, and n isn't an effective method in this category. This is a solid challenge that makes the game more interesting.

Unlike the other two games reviewed here, Hangman 1.7 provides its keyboard in "A-B-C" alphabetical style. Neither my daughter nor I found much to quibble about with this decision, as it's easy enough to find letters both in this layout and in the QWERTY-style layout used by the games reviewed below.

MobilityWare charges $1 for Hangman, though the company also offers a . The only difference between the two apps is that MobilityWare's Free Hangman features ads.

Hang In There: Hangman Sim pops up a word definition at the end of each game, and also lets you manipulate the hung man in some gruesome ways.Hangman Sim 1.2 is, I think, slightly better than JamSoft's Hangman 1.3, but my daughter disagrees. (More on this in a moment.) Hangman Sim from boasts a 5,000-word dictionary, and provides pop-up definitions after each game is either won or lost. It is unique among these three games in using the built-in accelerometer, which it does in two ways. The first, and most practical, enables you to choose to play in either vertical or horizontal orientation mode, or to switch over automatically, depending on which way you're holding your iPod. The second, and somewhat gruesome, way is that when you lose and are "hung," you can tilt the iPod to make the deceased swing back and forth faster, or even spin around the top of the gallows. If you're feeling really cruel, you can also poke him with your finger to make him move. This proves amusing, in a kind of sick way, for a few seconds.

It's unclear how many word categories Hangman Sim works from; you can choose, in the settings, to have the category revealed (or not), but you're unable to choose the category yourself. The game also enables you to choose from among four levels -- easy, medium, hard, and harder. I did find the program to be a bit buggy, in that it hung and quit sometimes while I chose my options. Of the three games, Hangman Sim gives you the fewest wrong guesses (six) before you lose, which, combined with the options to play at the hard and harder levels make this a bit more challenging than Mobilityware's game.